I thought that the Rasputins already down the street sells records? If Rasputins plans to close that part of that Rasputins, transfer records sales to the new site, can anyone really claim Amoeba would be negatively affected? All that would have changed is proximity, with the possibility of the new, albeit closer, Rasputin store maybe incrementally bigger. Reminds me when I asked what the managers of a Lodi Grocery Outlet thought when they heard of a planned Walmart near them --- they welcomed it because that meant that much more people to try to lure via competition. Indeed, it appears the Amoeba owner thinks likewise: Amoeba and Rasputins at Telegraph and Haste might make this the West Coast destination intersection of all things vinyl, with each store finding it's own niche, and consumers better off. If Moe's and Shakespeare books can (perhaps only grudgingly, who knows) figure out how to compete in close proximity, why not these two record stores? Good for Amoeba's manager/owner in seeing the silver lining in this!

I think that "Moorish palace" structure is spectacular. If it comes out anything like the architect's renderings, it'd be a most welcome change from the timid banality of most 'modern' architecture going up these days.

However this Sarachan character seems so shady that it's unlikely any such building project will ever come to fruition, especially one so aesthetically and logistically ambitious. Fingers crossed though!

More of the same. In another five years we'll be reading basically the same article, filled with a new array of nonsensical 'plans' from the fertile imagination of Ken Sarachan. It's amazing how he's outmaneuvered the city of Berkeley for so many years...all in order to spite his competition.

While I agree that the second Billboard article (from January 29) is far less sympathetic to Keating in regards to her dealings with YouTube, it seems like because of that shift some of what's there may have been taken the wrong way.

Billboard's "These responses go against descriptions of the agreement presented to Keating (and transcribed by her) by YouTube previously, and presumably represent an update to the contract's terms." was described as "Billboard even appeared to imply doubt about Keating's note-taking", but I don't take it that way. It sounds, to me, like Billboard was saying exactly the same thing Keating did via email: That what YouTube is now claiming are the contract terms is different from what they've been telling Keating over the past year, so they seem to have made revisions in response to the media attention.

Like they say there are 3 sides to every story. His, hers and the truth. I welcome anyone to contact me and hear the many parts that are missing. As open minded adults make your own conclusions. Not too complicated if you have the correct information. I say if you are going to tell a story, tell the WHOLE story, not just the parts that suit you. EGO, hell of a drug. Simply put, Isaac decided that since he couldn't be the king and tell us what to do he thought it was a much better idea and decided on his own to walk away, create a lot of chaos, play it out in public while trying to shut down a very viable business that is actually open, that he actually has a stake in rather than be part of a great team along with us at BRIX 581. Genius? Not so much. Privileged? Entitled? Selfish? Most likely. 415.724.7274 -Adam

@eric. The majority of time that it took to open the venue was because when I bought it, the building was in horrible condition, even worse than the last owner claimed. It took the building department 6 months to approve my building plans. They initially wanted me to put an elevator in the property to appease title 24 requirements that allow handicapped people in the venue, even though I pointed out that the second floor was a dance-floor. They eventually capitulated when I agreed to put a smaller dance-floor on the first floor of the venue. But the Oakland building department is full of the worst type of bureaucrats that have no interest in helping you, in fact, they choose how much overtime they work, so it's actually in their interest to nit-pick and be as adversarial as possible to your project. I pretty much took that entire building apart and put it back together again.

The dispute does seem acrimonious, but the larger issue here is why there's so much red tape to open a new venue in Oakland. Three months to get all your permitting together is a best-case scenario, from what i've observed and heard. The city should be working with venues to activate spaces and fast-track permit apps. There should be an Entertainment Commission to help expedite the process, which appears to be fairly Byzantine and overly-cumbersome.

As a strong advocate of the performative arts community in Oakland, this situation is very sad. Oakland is celebrated for it's thriving and unapologetic artistic scene, yet, we are very limited in our accessibility to good venues & spaces that will allow us to have our crafts supported. I wish all the energies behind this beautiful venue are able to get the doors open soon so we can make use of this great venue.